{"id":11117,"date":"2016-08-17T01:26:25","date_gmt":"2016-08-17T06:26:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/the-personal-god\/"},"modified":"2016-08-17T01:26:25","modified_gmt":"2016-08-17T06:26:25","slug":"the-personal-god","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/the-personal-god\/","title":{"rendered":"THE PERSONAL GOD"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=MsoNormal align=center style='margin-bottom:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt; text-align:center;line-height:normal'><b>EXODUS 3:1\u201317<\/b><\/p>\n<p class=MsoNormal align=center style='margin-bottom:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt; text-align:center;line-height:normal'><i>God is also said to Moses, \u201cSay to the Israelites, \u2018The Lord, the God of your fathers \u2026 has sent me to you.\u2019&nbsp;\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n<p class=MsoNormal align=center style='margin-bottom:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt; text-align:center;line-height:normal'><i>(Exodus 3:15a).<\/i><\/p>\n<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-indent: 18.0pt;line-height:normal'>God not only incomprehensible and wonderful, He is also personal. He names Himself, and He gives us names for Himself. The God who created heaven and earth is a person, and we are persons. That\u2019s what makes it possible for us to have a personal relationship with God.<\/p>\n<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-indent: 18.0pt;line-height:normal'>In fact, a personal relationship with God is inescapable. Often we hear Christians give their testimony of how they were born again, and they say, \u201cNow I have a personal relationship with Christ.\u201d We understand what people mean by this. But what is often overlooked is this question: What kind of relationship did that person have with God before he was born again?<\/p>\n<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-indent: 18.0pt;line-height:normal'>You see, we always have a personal relationship with God because we are persons and He is a person. That relationship is established in creation between God and us. I can deny the existence of God, but all that does is put me in an estranged relationship with God. It is a relationship now of hostility and denial, but it is still a relationship.<\/p>\n<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-indent: 18.0pt;line-height:normal'>So the question is not whether there is a personal relationship, but rather what is the \u201cquality\u201d of that relationship. Is it a healthy or an unhealthy one? It is a redeemed or an estranged one? Is it a relationship of love or of hate?<\/p>\n<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-indent: 18.0pt;line-height:normal'>Notice something else about this personal relationship. When God revealed Himself to Moses, He said, \u201cI am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob\u201d (Exodus 3:6). God was personally known by the saints of the Old Covenant, and He spoke to them. The God of the Old Testament is the same as the God of the New Testament.<\/p>\n<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-indent: 18.0pt;line-height:normal'>This fact brings up the following question regarding the God we worship: Do we come to worship on Sunday, do we tend to bring with us only the New Testament? Are we guilty of overlooking God\u2019s personal self-revelation in the pages of the Old Testament?<\/p>\n<p class=MsoNormal align=center style='margin-bottom:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;   text-align:center;line-height:normal'><b>CORAM DEO<\/b><\/p>\n<p class=MsoNormal align=center style='margin-bottom:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;   text-align:center;line-height:normal'>Leviticus 4\u20136<\/p>\n<p class=MsoNormal align=center style='margin-bottom:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;   text-align:center;line-height:normal'>Matthew 25:1\u201330<\/p>\n<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height:   normal'>One   of the reasons our worship is often so meager today is that we tend to lose   sight of the historical continuity of God\u2019s family. Over the next few days\u2014in   your times of devotion and worship of the God of Abraham and the Patriarchs,   of Paul and the Apostles, and of the Reformers\u2014consciously thank Him for your   great spiritual heritage.<\/p>\n<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height:   normal'><i>For   further study: Exodus 6:1\u20138; John 8:48\u201359; Hebrews 13:8<\/i><\/p>\n<p class=MsoNormal align=center style='margin-bottom:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt; text-align:center;line-height:normal'>friday<\/p>\n<p class=MsoNormal align=center style='margin-bottom:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt; text-align:center;line-height:normal'>february<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>EXODUS 3:1\u201317 God is also said to Moses, \u201cSay to the Israelites, \u2018The Lord, the God of your fathers \u2026 has sent me to you.\u2019&nbsp;\u201d (Exodus 3:15a). God not only incomprehensible and wonderful, He is also personal. He names Himself, and He gives us names for Himself. The God who created heaven and earth is &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/the-personal-god\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;THE PERSONAL GOD&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11117","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sermons"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11117","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11117"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11117\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11117"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11117"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11117"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}